It’s great to see so many “low power” FM radio stations popping up across the country like Richmond, Va.’s WRIR-LP, where Garry Morse does his “Lost Music Saloon” show on. And, for the first time, a DJ mentions classical music as a favorite […]
When I was a kid, the place was called Spec’s Music — a chain store that sat at the far corner of a WalMart shopping center. My development as a musician and music fan could be traced by the albums […]
The question is dusty but no less significant: How do you follow up a masterpiece? More specifically, when you’re a rock band whose debut is the sort of tour de force that most recording artists can only hope to make […]
What was going on back in 1995, when No Depression was founded? Well, to start with, Uncle Tupelo was no more. Son Volt debuted with Trace, while Wilco released A.M. Trace won the first round in that little set to, […]
By Joel Barrett Sweet music, sweet spots For lovers of live music — rock, folk, or jazz, and everything in between — the Boston area really is the promised land. There are more concerts in one week in northeastern Massachusetts than […]
“We’ll know when we get there/If we find mercy,” Jay Farrar sings in “The Picture”, the second track on The Search, Son Volt’s fifth album. If in fact the record’s title is a clue as to its journey, that lyric […]
At first blush, this seems a borderline proposition — a career overview of a band that ran for five years and issued three albums (notwithstanding the recent revival of the name, though only leader Jay Farrar returns in the new […]
If Gram Parsons knew when he scribbled those words in a 1972 letter that 21 years later country music’s biggest stars would record a best-selling tribute album to the Eagles, he probably would have been aghast. Though his oft-stated desire […]
Jay Farrar’s voice hits like raw coffee on an empty stomach. It cuts into things — the night usually — with plain force and unkind certainty. He does not write songs to put you at your ease, and if perchance […]
Catchin’ an all-night station Somewhere in Louisiana It sounds like 1963 But for now It sounds like heaven. –“Windfall,” Son Volt It’s a warm, incandescent, comforting burnt-orange blur. The slim needle of the AM radio dial in that old Chevy […]
